The two men were climbing Argentina's Monte Fitz Roy in 1999, recalled Robinson, executive director of the Access Fund, a Boulder-based climbing area advocacy organization.

"I had no partner, and it was one of my first times climbing, so I carried a bunch of heavy loads to the base to try and impress the others and seem really eager so they would climb with me," Robinson said. "Mark and his buddies had a nice, big tent and invited me in and he told me, 'Any fool can suffer. Next time just bring some horses and a bottle of wine.'"

Hesse, 63, died Monday after he was found unresponsive at the Boulder Rock Club, according to the Boulder County Coroner's Office.

Mark Hesse
(Courtesy photo)

The cause and manner of his death are still being investigated. While many of the details around what happened are vague, the respect friends and colleagues had for Hesse and his dedication to increasing access to climbing areas while protecting the environment is tangible.

"Mark, he really dedicated his life to trail work and stewardship," Robinson said. "He was a lifelong climber and a good friend."

Robinson said Hesse's project fell through on that trip 15 years ago in Argentina, so he broke off his plans to climb with him.

"I couldn't believe that he climbed with me for a few days; I felt so lucky," Robinson said. "He was just a very kind person."

In 1982, Hesse founded the American Mountain Foundation — a group established to fund international climbing expeditions — and later began to notice how the climbers and other users could do damage to the natural areas they were visiting. He altered the group's mission and in 1997 renamed it the Rocky Mountain Field Institute.

The Colorado Springs-based organization is dedicated to building sustainable trails and infrastructure around climbing areas and restoring affected areas, according to the institute's website.

Hesse, who earned his undergraduate and master's degrees from the University of Colorado, stepped down as the institute's executive director in 2008 and left its board in 2012, now-executive director Rebecca Reed Jewett said.

But retirement was not a word in Hesse's vocabulary, according to Jewett, and after just recently moving to Boulder with his family he had already begun consulting on trail design with local climbing groups. That involvement typified the dedication that defined Hesse, said Jewett, who first met him while volunteering on one of his trail projects in Utah's Indian Creek Canyon.

"He loved being in the field working on projects," she said. "He would spend all day moving rocks and material, and even when the rest of us thought we put in a good day's work and it was time to go back to camp and eat dinner, Mark would stay until dark. He was incredibly passionate about the work and just loved the outdoors."

Rick Thompson, national access director for the Access Fund, worked with Hesse on multiple trail projects dating back to the mid-1990s and did some casual climbing with him as well.

Thompson said that by the time he first met Hesse, he had already established a reputation for his work in Utah and Colorado.

"I have nothing but good things to say about Mark," Thompson said. "He was just a fantastically motivated guy and a real lead-by-example kind of individual. He was highly respected and will be sorely missed."

John Bicknell, co-owner of the Boulder Rock Club, said Hesse had a membership at the climbing gym several different times and was on a one-month pass when he died this week. Although he did not know him well, Bicknell spoke highly of Hesse's reputation in the climbing community.

"He's somebody who I've heard nothing but good things about as a mountaineer, as an educator and as an environmentalist," Bicknell said. "He's somebody who gave back to the community, and that makes this an even bigger loss."

It was about 2 p.m. Monday when employees and other climbers at the gym, 2829 Mapleton Ave., heard what they thought was a person falling and found Hesse unresponsive on the floor, Bicknell said.

Staff members began performing CPR until paramedics arrived and took Hesse to Boulder Community Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, according to police.

Bicknell said the climbing gym was not busy at the time of the incident, and no one witnessed what happened.

Employees heard a sound consistent with a fall, but they didn't see injuries on his body that indicated he fell from a great distance, he said.

He said Hesse was wearing a harness, a chalk bag and climbing shoes, but clearly had not been using one of the club's auto-belay devices prior to being found.

Police investigators say they do not believe anything criminal occurred.

While they wait for the results of the coroner's investigation, those who knew Hesse say their thoughts are with his loved ones.

"All of us at the Rocky Mountain Field Institute are deeply saddened by his passing, and we wish his family the best as they get through this tough time," Jewett said. "He will be greatly missed."

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